Tag Archives: pools

Bendy

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Downtown Bend, Oregon

Downtown Bend, Oregon

 

Springfield is my home, but I love Bend, Oregon. Two hours’ drive from our house lies the city of Bend, which we visit annually. Usually, this visit falls in the lovely month of October (only the best month), but this time it was in December. We are staying (as usual) in the Seventh Mountain Resort, which features an ice skating rink, multiple pools and hot tubs, a basketball court, a spider web, and wi-fi– saving the best for last.

While these are certainly perks, one of my favorite parts of Bend is Zydeco, a restaurant in downtown that serves amazing food- probably my favorite anywhere (except maybe Taco Bell). It is to die for. I usually get the steelhead, which comes with mashed potatoes, green beans, pearl onions, and plenty of capers. Delicious. So I ordered the steelhead tonight– but it came with red quinoa, asparagus, and more than plenty of capers. The pearl onions were definitely missed, but the dessert more than made up for that: chocolate pot de crème, which is basically a very rich chocolate mousse. Mom and I shared a serving, while somehow Dad and Ethan managed to polish off a jar (that’s how the dessert was served) each. It was rather incredible, really, watching them put away that much food.

We got back to the hotel too late to go swimming, so we retired to our room, which is roomy enough to have separate bedrooms for Ethan and me.

It’s snowy/slushy/icy here, but not more than Springfield: for those of you who may not have noticed, the Willamette Valley was blasted by an Arctic cold front for two weeks, giving us lovely temperatures, ranging, on the average day, from -2 to 22. And yes, that is Fahrenheit. Since it was so dry for most of the time, school wasn’t delayed because there were no icy roads– it was just super cold. Tuesday, December 3, was very exciting because it snowed. At school. Like, in the middle of the day. It snowed about half an inch at our house and stuck until Friday, which had snow predicted.

All my teachers were banking on a snow day, and my friends put spoons under their pillows and wore their pajamas inside-out.

And it must have worked, because on Friday there was no school. When I woke up at 6 am, we had two inches of snow at our house. By four o’clock there were eight inches and counting, and somehow Dad had driven home from the Eugene airport. (Actually, it’s not somehow– it’s four-wheel-drive.)

Saturday, we were four of the very few who braved the roads to church. On Sunday, we ventured into town for a piano recital at Barnes & Noble (featuring, due to weather, ONLY Ethan and me) and necessary shopping. Monday, the schools were once again closed. I went over to a friend’s house, and we walked to my school to pick up band music. There’s hardly any ice, I thought.

Tuesday was another snow day. Friday and Monday were the two snow days for which my school had allowed– Tuesday started filling up our two furlough days. When Wednesday proved hopeless, all I could do was hope that Thursday would be a school day. Also on Wednesday, there was a voluntary band rehearsal to which about twenty of the ninety-nine involved in the concert come this Tuesday showed up.

Thursday there was no school.

I cried.

And then, lo and behold–

There was school today! (Which was a really good thing, because how would they be able to explain keeping school closed in 40-degree (Fahrenheit) weather when their only excuse for school closure was ice on the roads?)

It may have been a Friday schedule, with all of our eight classes meeting forty-four minutes each, but it was school!

And yes, there is a good chance I was the only one of sixteen hundred students who was absolutely thrilled to have school.

Ciao!

No Fun Allowed

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Just nineteen minutes into tomorrow marks the 31,536,000th second, the 525,600th minute, the 8,760th hour, the 52nd week, the 12th month, and the first year away from our house. That’s over 31-and-a-half million seconds. And I still can’t believe it.

My first of two posts on June 18, 2012, began, ‘Today we leave the house. Tomorrow we go to the airport. Wednesday we fly.’  So, if I were to write this thirteen hours ago: today we go to the airport. Tomorrow we fly. Thursday we reenter the house.

In those thirteen hours, we have flown for less than an hour across the Aegean Sea on Aegean Airlines, which actually served drinks and peanuts. I don’t know when I last was served a drink and peanuts—no more, no less—on a flight. I think that may have been back in 2009 or 2010.

At the airport, we got our luggage and took the long, long hike across the narrow, quiet street to our hotel. Ethan and I went swimming in the pool on the 9th floor, which is also a spa. Mom went with us. On our arrival, a woman greeted us with a smile and “No jumping and no diving.”

I had brought the goggles up, and we took turns throwing them into the pool and timing how long it took the other to find them. Dad came by, and we had him hide the goggles. It took me nine seconds to raise them above my head, but Ethan grabbed them from me and claimed victory.

As soon as Dad left to check in at the airport, one of the women who works at the spa came by and said, very quietly, that Ethan and I needed to be quieter. I heard her.

I got out and dried off. It’s no fun swimming when you can’t make noise and can’t jump in or anything.

So.

 

Supper was at the airport at The Olive Tree. Mom and I shared a starter Greek salad (which was still quite sizeable) and a large plate of penne with chicken and sundried tomatoes. It was very good.

Over dinner, Dad and I phrased tomorrow these three ways:

  1. It will be a 34-hour day what with the time zone change.
  2. We’re already in bed (it’s 7:44 pm)—tomorrow (in Pacific Coast time), we’ll be awake from 5:30 pm to about 9:30 pm. Eep.
  3. In Athens time, we’ll be awake from 3:30 am to 7:30 am, on two different days. Eep again.

Ciao!

E&E Electric Eels

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Today being our last full day in Crete, we naturally spent it packing our suitcases and duffle bag (yes, we are adding another bag). We polished off yesterday’s chocolate cake, and after two rehearsals Ethan and I performed our whole E&E Electric Eels routine. It came off, for the most part, without a hitch. It had lots of flips, tricks, and English-accented commentary.

Dinner was at Taverna Fantastico, which is where we ate supper way back on May 25, our second Cretan day (and our first restaurant-made Cretan meal). We’ve eaten there twice since and have enjoyed the view, good food, and cute rabbits each time. Tonight one of the rabbits was missing.

Did you know that a traditional Cretan dish is rabbit stew?

Ciao!

Yum…me Yogurt

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Today we used fro-yo as an excuse to vacate the house while it was being cleaned. We also went to a fountain and the cathedral in Rethymno.

I had the strawberry cheesecake, chocolate, and orange flavors, with chocolate sauce, chocolate chips, and strawberries and a tiny bit of the lemon-chocolate sauce (which was nasty). A bunch of teenaged girls next to us were cooing over an iguana on a leash, which was sitting at a table. I don’t know Greek, but I’m sure they were saying “Isn’t it cute??”

Back home, I swam for thirty-five minutes and then read another 4% of Moby Dick, taking me to 30%. For supper Mom cooked pasta and green beans and made a salad—which, as usual, had too little vinegar.

Ciao!

Wet ‘n’ Wild

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Ethan was the only one of the four of us brave enough to venture into the cold, wavy Libyan Sea today at Agio Pavlos (Saint Paul). The rest of us sat under our new, striped umbrellas on the sand and had our hair swept around by the wind. When we arrived home after a stop at the bakery, Ethan and I went out to the pool and swam. Ethan and I made up a game with our new blue floating bed. The ‘shark’ was on the bed and the ‘minnow’ started in the opposite corner and had the goggles. The goal of the minnow was to get to the opposite corner and back without being tagged by the shark. The shark had to keep all body parts on the floaty except their arms and hands. If they flipped over, the game was paused as the shark returned to an upright position.

After this, I did schoolwork (I only have 40 questions of US history left!) until we left for supper at a waterfront restaurant run by the same people as our villa, which is called Villa Ivi. We ordered seven dishes: tzatziki, vine leaf rolls, grilled pepper, stuffed tomatoes, Greek salad, zucchini balls, and a swordfish steak. This swordfish was much, much better than the one that Dad and I had five years ago in the Caribbean. As Dad said, I don’t really like it when swordfish is served as a shoe (a.k.a. unchewable).

The food was all very good, and the dessert (melon and cherries) was entertaining.

Ciao!

One Cool Pool

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“We’re now on Crete, which is good, but that means there’s no more English,” Dad commented as we walked into the bakery. We were in Iraklion, the port city where we had landed and gotten our rental car after showers on the ferry, and we were hungry. The bakery was the perfect place to sate that hunger.

The subtitles of the pastries were in English (Dad was wrong), and I chose a slice of spinach pie and a mini sugar-covered donut. Mom and Ethan also chose mini sugar-covered donuts, but Ethan had a cheesy pastry and Mom had two mini spinach pies and one mini cheese pie. Dad ordered a tomato-and-olive ring and a chocolate-frosted mini donut. We ate in the car our drive to our house.

We were greeted by the owner’s sister-in-law when we arrived. According to the car, it was 23°C (73.4°F). It was much, much cooler than it had been in Athens, and the crystal-clear pool in the backyard didn’t seem so inviting.

Dad napped, and then we were back on the road to get groceries. After driving through Rethymno, Crete’s third-largest city, we settled on the Lidl supermarket in our village called Agia Triada. We bought—along with foodstuff including garlic, frozen ravioli, orange-chocolate cookies, and bell peppers—soap, laundry soap, and the cheapest serviettes we could find: we bought three packages. The available bright colors were tangerine, yellow, pink, green, and dark purple. Guess what? We didn’t get pink! Ethan originally chose tangerine, yellow, and pink, but then he discovered the green and purple. After I vetoed the purple, he selected the green. It went well with neither pink and yellow nor pink and tangerine, so I reluctantly dropped the pink. We used white ones from the bakery for dinner, though, so my pain was not even recognized.

 

Upon our return, I happily organized the groceries in our kitchen before heading upstairs to my room. Realizing I’d left my Kindle downstairs in the living room, I dashed down to get it. Ethan was lounging on the couch reading, and I asked him why he hadn’t been swimming—he who had seemed so ready to jump into a pool in Athens at the drop of a hat.

“I don’t know” being the standard response to everything, that was as much as I got. But within five minutes, he was out in the pool. I joined him and Dad outside shortly thereafter, while Mom slaved over a hot stove in the kitchen. After lounging in the sun and reading for a few minutes, I eventually gathered my courage and slipped into the cool pool. Ethan was convinced and returned to enjoy the shallow waters. The shadows were getting longer, and before the whole pool was in the shade Ethan had retreated to the concrete and his towel. I stayed in the pool doing backflips until ten minutes before supper, which was salad, green beans, and pasta with tomato sauce and chicken.

Ciao!

Ways of the Waterholes

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We went on two drives today. The first one was in the morning, starting at 6:30. On this drive, we went to four waterholes: Newbrownii, Gemsbokvlakte, Olifantsbad, and Aus. At Newbrownii, we saw kori bustards, gemsbok, guineafowl, springbok, and jackals. At the next stop, Gemsbokvlakte, we saw first a lot of jackals, then a hyena, then vultures, and then the dead zebra.

At Olifantsbad and Aus, we saw red hartebeest, kudu, impala, and more guineafowl. We returned to the camp for breakfast, and then we paid a visit to the Okaukeujo waterhole, where we saw zebra, kudu, wildebeeste, springbok, gemsbok, and 29 elephants.

We returned to the Okaukeujo waterhole after a drive up to Wolfsnes and Okendeka waterholes where we saw lions and a cub, ostriches, and a gemsbok with a curly horn, a birthday call to Mirinda, a dip in the pools, and supper. We all enjoyed our Magnums (Death by Chocolate for Dad and Ethan, Mint for Mom, and Chocolatier Collection: Biscotti for me) and watched 16 giraffes come and go. There were also the typical jackals and a handful of springbok.

One of these antelopes almost died when the lion pounced. In its place died a wildebeest. Mom, Dad, and I snuck off to see how long it would take Ethan to notice our absence. It was a new record: eight minutes. We’re now quenching our thirst with refrigerator-chilled, good-tasting, bottled water.

Ciao!

A Lazy Leopard or Uno Unicorn

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Dad says that she wasn’t that lazy, but how hard is it to move a kudu fifteen feet? I could do it.

Okay, that’s because I stand on two feet, not four, and would pull with my hands, not my teeth.

But on the bright side: we saw a LEOPARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She was at the Nuamses waterhole, which is five kilometers off the main road. I was surprised at how few cars were there, although there were six nonetheless. She had just killed a kudu and it was lying dead with its back feet in the water.

She tried pulling it several times to no avail. She eventually bit the kudu’s tail off and ate it. Finally, after an hour, she pulled it behind a clump of twelve-foot trees. Then she walked off, which seems very risky because a lion or a group of hyenas could easily walk in and say, “Hey, I want some kudu!” and then eat it.

We saw four more giraffes and a herd of 23 elephants at the Goas waterhole. We also saw a gemsbok with a broken leg. We returned after seeing the leopard, and, too our great surprise, the gemsbok was still there and alive!

Yesterday we saw a real live unicorn. How awesome is that???

Ciao!

A to Zebra

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Between today and yesterday, we have seen no fewer than 27 giraffes and two lions, both adult males. We’ve also seen two bush babies, a whole troop of mongoose, starlings, a few ostriches, and a million trillion each of zebra, springbok, rooibok (a.k.a. impala), gemsbok, and kudu. We saw most of these animals at the Chudop waterhole.

We visited several other waterholes and saw nothing of interest. In between two, we saw two elephants trying to hide in the shade.

Once at Halali Camp, Ethan and I swam and then Dad bought all four of us Magnums.

At the waterhole, we saw two rhinos, a few jackals, and two springbok, plus lots of little birds. We could hear the lions roar but left at around 10:00, before they got to the waterhole.

Ciao!

Day 100!

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Only 265 days to go!

Today was another hot day and we spent it hiking up, down, and around the Waterberg Plateau. We went on the Kambazembi Walk first, accidentally, thinking it would bring us to the top. After an hour, we decided it wouldn’t. So we made a 360-degree turn and finally got on the Mountain View trail. Mom kept saying, “I don’t do well with rocks” as the trail was covered in chunks of plateau.

There was a little canyon in the side of the plateau, and that was the way up. To go beyond the lookout, you have to have a special permit. Which we (thankfully) didn’t get. The view was great, grand, and gushingly gorgeous. To get down, we followed the white footprints (not the yellow brick road). Mom and I were worried about territorial baboons attacking us, and we almost choked with terror as a herd of gemsbok (more commonly known as oryx) fled through the bushes.

I commented on how I was relieved, but Dad said, “I wish it had been baboons.” Just then, we reached the road and had to walk up a hill to get to our South African car. As we rounded a corner, we saw- you’ll never guess!- baboons! We only saw three, but Dad reassured us that there is always a group. (That wasn’t very reassuring.)

Walking by the little brick buildings used in the hotel, we saw a group of warthogs, or vlakvark. We finally got in the car, went a little ways on the Francolin Walk (francolin is a type of bird), and then got Magnums at the shop.

Once home, Ethan and I swam in the pool, using the little yellow boat to recreate the Titanic.

Ciao!

A Dog Day

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Tasso, Lilly, Nala, Choc, and Bonzo are the dogs’ official names. Susa, Choc’s mother, was killed by a snake. I suppose that Miro is dead, too.

Tasso is the giant hulk. He is the father of Choc but seems loathe to admit it. Tasso loves the rope and was growling at Alex- the owner- when he tried to take it away. Whenever he’s thirsty, he goes for the nearest water, be it planter, pool, or pond.

Lilly is not who I thought it was. Lilly is the medium-sized black dog. She usually stays out of fights but loves the rope almost as much as Tasso. One of her favorite pastimes seems to be being chased by Nala and Bonzo.

Nala looks like a docile little daschound. That’s just a cover for the demon who comes out against Choc and Bonzo. Her teeth are like little razors. Nala is sweet when you get near her… just as long as the rope isn’t around.

Choc is the daughter of Tasso and the late Susa. She was the only puppy of six who looked like Tasso. She is eight weeks old. Susa died three weeks ago. Choc is short for Chocolate, and she was so named because of her milk-brown coat and floppy dark brown ears. She is, in my opinion, the cutest of the dogs. She is a fierce fighter. Well, she wishes she was. She’s too small to challenge Tasso, Lilly, and Bonzo, but Nala is just her size. Actually, Choc is slightly bigger than Nala. And Nala is full-grown.

Bonzo is the most outgoing of the dogs. He was the one who came to greet us last night as we arrived. He seems the most content with his life and spent this afternoon curled up by the side of the pool. Bonzo play-fights often with Nala (and Choc, too, but she is too small to really count).

I love all five, but Choc has to be my favorite, followed, in order, by Nala, Bonzo, Tasso, and Lilly.

Ciao!

Point of View

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Rise and shine Ethan! No sleeping in today! We have to go see the sunrise at Ayers Rock! C’mon, up up up!… Ethan, NOW!
Oh, you’re cold? Go stand by Mom. Yes, it’s freezing. The car said it was fifteen degrees Celsius. No, I don’t know what that is is Fahrenheit. Ask Mom for her phone.
Are you done with your breakfast yet? We have to go walk to the waterhole.
That was some waterhole. I’ve seen Periodic Tables with more H2O than that. You want to climb the rock? And die? Be my guest.
Look, you could actually climb the rock here; there’s the chain. No, it’s closed due to high wind. When will ten-o’clock ever come? Here’s the ranger, five minutes late. Let’s go.
What did you think of that? I thought he said “I don’t know what I’m talking about” too many times. He was also trying to convince you not to climb the rock. Like you would’ve even if it was open!
Sorry, I’m not going swimming in that freezing cold pool. I’ll stay here.
Mom, let’s open the Tim-Tams!!! … I want the last one too! Fine, we’ll split it. NO, I do not have the bigger half. I intentionally gave you the bigger one.
Ugh, this walk goes on forever. Ugh, that pun was so blah: “This is gorgeous!” We’re in a gorge. In the Olgas, 50K away from the Rock. That’s where we are. What is Sparta?!
Ohmygoodness, these potato crisps are so good. DO NOT sit on me. I’m serious Ethan. Pose for the camera. UGH! That picture is so embarrassing!!! Yes, Mom, we’ll be quiet. Oh, did you see that bus that was missing an S and said, This bus is licensed to  eat 46 passengers?
Ciao!

A V-Air-y Good Day

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Ethan took a didgeridoo course this morning at the Sounds of Starlight Theatre at the Todd Mall. After that half hour, Mom, Ethan, and I looked at the shops around it until Dad got frustrated of waiting on a bench for us. So we meandered down to the Royal Flying Doctors museum. We were all disappointed that the “cockpit” was out-of-order (OOO), but we got to see a movie and look at the displays.

After some more walking, we bought some Rocky Road, which is really marshmallows on fudge, thinly covered in the same chocolate. It was really good and we ate it by the Todd “River.” We had a ten-minute delay, but we finally got to the School of the Air center. We got to see two lessons being broadcasted from Studio 1 and watch a movie in the room next door. We also got to look at the Harmony Quilts made by the kids. All 131 students get together at least three times a year. There are 15 total teachers, and each teacher meets every one of his/her students once a year.

They also had a map that showed where and who and at what level all of the Students of the Air were. We even found Jackson from Ambalindum, who is a preschooler. On another wall it showed pictures and autographs of famous people who’d been to the center, and it including Queen Elizabeth II (signed ElizabethR) and Princess Diana and Prince Philip.

On the way home, we bought peppermint Magnums at Wentworth’s. After eating ours, Ethan and I went swimming in the chilly 70-degree pool. We only stayed in for a mere half hour. Once warm and dry again, Ethan and I played tetherball (sadly, he won all three games). We went up to Anzac Hill for the sunset and then bought pizza and a salad from La Casalinga. It was very good, and we ate all fourteen slices.

Ciao!

On the Grid

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Finally back to civilization! After two whole days of being off the grid at Ambalindum, we’re finally able to catch up at Kathy’s B&B in Alice Springs. We also got on the grid on the way here when we drove over them. We saw some kangaroos last evening and this morning before we left the station. On the way here we stopped at Trephina Gorge and took a two kilometer hike around the rim and on the bed of the creek.

Once we got here, Ethan saw the pool and instantly started begging me to swim with him. Well, at 68º Fahrenheit, I’m not touching that water. Ethan eventually did, though, and Dad watched him. I hope he had fun.

Ciao!

Action!

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Ethan should be so happy; we got to sleep in! (Well, 8:30.) We had showers and a quick breakfast of cereal, toast, veggie sausages (with sundried tomatoes and kalamata olives), and oranges before moping around the homestead for hours. Well, not really.

First, Mel gave us a tour. She showed us the garden, the Bunkhouse, the Cottage, the Bush Camp, Dave’s cool rocks, the Shower Under the Stars, and the sheep shearing shed. In the garden are her and Dave’s cool rocks, including granite, quartz, quartz with iron oxide, and sticks of rock that a Japanese mining company dug up. Some of these have garnets in them.

Mel reminds me of a friend back home, from the blond hair to her love of Australia to the worn cowboy boots. She is, I think, 26 because she was wearing a Class 12 2004 shirt. She told us that the whole station is 3,316 square kilometers, which is the same as 5,121 homesteads, 819,401 acres, 3,277,606 roods, and 1,280 square miles. Mel also showed us the old butcher’s shop, and in it is a meat cutter, a poster showing different cuts of meat, and a freezer with beef on hooks in it. She told us that she likes the beef at her home, where they get it from English cattle. Here they mainly have Drought Masters (or something like that), with some others mixed in.

She also asked if we’d seen Lollipop the pony or Rapunzel the calf in Claraville on our way up. (We hadn’t.) She said that they belong to Tim, the owner of this place, and that his two-and-a-half-year-old son named Rapunzel. Mel gets to name the next calf here. She’s planning on it being a little girl who’ll be christened Amba, short for Ambalindum.

After schoolwork was done and Dad had gone on a walk and seen a live kangaroo, we got in the Kluger and went up to the lookout. After coming back down, we found that the film crew for the Old Ambalindum Homestead TV commercial was here! (Film crew of two.) So were Dave, Tim, and the other owner of Ambalindum. Dave, by the way, is an older guy who likes rocks.

The first shot that I saw taken was of Tim driving in twenty-four horses (there are twenty-seven owned by Ambalindum). Ethan was supposed to be captured leaning against the fence of the pen. He and I don’t think he was.

Once Rex (the Kiwi cameraman) came back from his wild ride across the bush, Mel and Dave built a fire and, once it got dark, we got filmed. Mel was supposed to take the pot off and on, depending on Rex’s command, the fire, Ethan and I were supposed to roast our marshmallows, and the adults (Mom, Dad, Dave, and Rex’s wife) were supposed to chatter. Dad said, “Whoa, did you see that huge spider?!” I dropped my first marshmallow; the second burst in to flame. Mel had to present the damper (a huge sultana scone. She called it raisin, and Dave said, “Getting fancy now, are we?” Rex’s wife said, “He doesn’t know the difference.”) to the camera. We were dying of laughter before Rex said “Cut!”

Ciao!

A Thousand Kilometers of Nothingness

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Today we got to see 992 kilometers of “sealed” road go by on our way to Tennant Creek from Darwin. That’s a long way to go south in one day, but we do it from home to California just about every summer. Anyway. I rode up front for the first three hours, then Ethan, and then Mom rode on the left side for the last 256K.

992 kilometers of dead kangaroo after dead kangaroo. Ethan and Mom each saw a live one, but Dad and I got to see a dead horse. That’s a fair trade…right?

Once we finally arrived, Ethan and I jumped at the chance to swim in the pool. It was FREEZING! Okay, it was probably just about the same as a lake in the Cascades, but to our India-hardened bodies, it was Antarctic. After a mere fifteen minutes we hopped out and went to Room Five of El Dorado Motel. There we dried off and warmed up and got ready for supper, which we had at a Portuguese restaurant run by a Portuguese woman. We ate tiny portions of our pasta to the tune of Nicki Minaj, hardly making dents in the huge amount served.
After we refueled the Kluger, we passed the Red Rooster restaurant sign. You should look it up.
Ciao!

Water Way, Water Day

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Today was our water day. And guess what? We even went to a park! Not a waterpark, officially, like with slides and rides, but it was Berry Springs Nature Park. It is supposedly crocodile-free, and we didn’t see any so I can’t officially argue with that. A lot of people on TripAdvisor and signs at the springs said that there are lots of wallabies and water monitors, but we didn’t see any. So why am I supposed to believe that there are wallabies and water monitors and pythons and no crocs?

At first it was uncomfortable. The rocks were slippery and spiky, the fish were nibbley, the people (namely Ethan) were annoying, the croc attack was imminent, the water was dirty, and the bugs were buzzing and biting.

We left the first and shallowest pool through the shallow canal to the Main Pool, where nothing really interesting happened except Ethan and I got brave enough to do handstands and I thought I saw a crocodile’s head. We went through another canal to get to the Lower Pool, and this time Mom said, “Wow, the current’s really going!” Dad tried to float with the current but kept hitting rocks and I said, “Currently, I’m feeling no current.” And when Ethan said that the current was really fast (or something to that effect), Dad said “Is that a currant or a gooseberry?”

What pathetic comedians we make.

Anywho, we got into the Lower Pool alright and went to the little dock. Ethan was singing the tune to Jaws. I was doing handstands. Mom and Dad were off to the side talking, probably about us. I did handstands and front flips to my heart’s content (not!) and then we swam downstream a little ways. We couldn’t find the weir, so we turned around. Ethan tried touching the bottom where it was twenty feet deep (feet-first). Actually it could have been deeper than that. We couldn’t see the bottom.

Oh, by the way, he failed. He also had a moment where he was scared of logs.

We fought our way upstream through the really-going current ‘til we got to the little platform at the Main Pool. Ethan snuck up on me and touched me with a leaf. I freaked out because I was still worried about crocs. He said, “Geez, it was just a leaf Eryn!” And I said, “That’s just like you hitting me with a log!!!” Of course that made him mad and he started lurking (though he was already mad about something else). (That’s when you lag behind because you’re mad. Not to embarrass Ethan; I do it too.)

Dad was the first one to the Upper Pool, and he and I stuck our heads under the waterfall. It was really heavy and I almost (not) drowned. Then Ethan and Mom came and Ethan and I stuck our heads under the waterfall, and eventually our whole selves til we were in this little cave. Then we left it backwards and floated out with the current-that-is-not-a-grape.

We finally left, picked up ice cream at Crazy Acres (two mangoes, one banana, and one passion fruit), and fed fish bread at Aquascene. It was mostly the same boring old slimy (yes, we touched them. We know) fish, but there was one spearfish- Speary, officially, but Ethan called it Speargun- and four rays: Raygan (the first and biggest one) and a group of three we called Robbie, Ronnie, and Rex. Robbie is short for Roberta. These and Raygan and Speary were too shy to get any bread, but I tried and tried for Speary. And therefore I failed and failed.

We’re also planning on going swimming again tonight. Yay!

Ciao!

Darwin Down Day

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It was so nice to be able to sleep in today!

After a (too-long) breakfast of rice, beans, and toasted (and non-toasted) crumpets, Dad sorted pictures, Mom did laundry, and Ethan and I forced ourselves through grueling hours of schoolwork: a review and mid-book test in Science, reading a lesson (or five) and a book in History, and doing a day’s section in Math. I also finished reading Prince Caspian and started on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. So far, Reepicheep, Kings Caspian and Edmund, Queen Lucy, and “Useless” Eustace have been captured as slaves. Aslan has not yet appeared. (In case you don’t know who I’m talking about, I would advise you to read The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.)

After eating our peppermint Magnum bars, Dad decided it was time to Do Something. So we got in the car with our swimsuits on to go to the beach and Do Something. Casuarina Beach is an actual beach, unlike the rocks outside our apartment. Ethan and Dad went way farther out into the surf than Mom and I did because I was worried about jellyfish and Mom didn’t want to be burnt to a crisp.

Soon enough we left and drove to Wentworth’s. Mom and Ethan got out there to buy groceries while Dad and I continued to the Greek restaurant and ordered supper. I memorized the twelve flavors of ice cream alphabetically: Boysenberry Swirl, Butterscotch, Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, Coffee Chip, Mango Swirl, Mint Chip, Rainbow, Rum and Raisin, Strawberry, Triple M&M, and Vanilla. Sadly we didn’t get any, but we did get a salad (consisting mainly of cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions and not much lettuce) and four pita-wrapped things in three different flavors: one Chippy, two Falafel, and one Saguaraki (we think that’s how it was spelled). We enjoyed these at a picnic table across the street from our apartment, and Michelle, our landlord, came to talk to us.

Ethan biked up and down the path by the side of the beach until he tired of it, then we all came in, and hopefully we’ll have chocolate ice cream and go swimming before bed. Ciao!

Meet the Crocs!

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Today we went to Crocosaurus Cove. It is (obviously) in Darwin but it took us a seemingly long time to get there because we couldn’t find it at first. Once we did find it, we parked two blocks away and walked through the heat to the entrance.

After paying, we walked through the little cave at the entrance, ran past the aquarium displays, sped up the stairs, and arrived at the Jaws of Death just in time to see the (fake) crocodile head bite a piece of ice. The saltwater croc has over a ton of pressure behind its jaws.

The lady then showed us most of the crocs in the display: first there was Burt, and one of the other croc-keepers, Paul, fed him chicken. Burt starred in the original Crocodile Dundee and provided the basis for the computer-generated croc in Rogue. Next to Burt was Chopper, who was named after the Aussie criminal Chopper Reid because “they both have missing limbs and fierce attitudes.”

After Chopper came Denzel who is apparently the meanest crocodile at the Cove. In confinement next to Denzel was Wendell, who was named after the rugby star Wendell Sailor. Sailor said that the name was fitting because the croc was big, bad, full of attitude, and loves the spotlight. Wendell is the largest croc at the Cove right now at 5.5 meters, just barely longer than Chopper, who is also at 5.5 meters.

Houdini and Bess- nicknamed William and Kate in honor the royal couple- came next. Houdini got his name for getting fish out of a trap and escaping enclosures at the Darwin Crocodile Farm. He has been tamed since being put with Bess in 1991, and Bess laid a clutch of eggs in November 2011.

Harry was named after the inspector in Dirty Harry. He is apparently psychic as he has correctly selected the results of the Federal Election, AFL, and World Cup Grand Finals by picking the chicken under one competitor or another.

After we all were introduced and friendly, the four of us left for the mall, which sadly closed at 3:30 pm because it was a Sunday, the pool at our apartments, and the Deckchair Cinema, where you sit out under the stars and watch a movie. We saw Brave. Ciao!

Yet ANOTHER Park

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Today it was Leanyer Recreational Park, which was run by the YMCA so it was free. It has a playground, a skate park, shade, a café, and, best of all, a waterpark!!!

It included three tube slides plus a water playground and a big pool. The playground had two short tube slides (pink and green), water guns, two superfast red slides, and a huge bucket that dumped water every three minutes and twenty seconds (Mom counted). Ethan and I had races following one format:

  1. Go through a tube.
  2. Run back to the stairs and go through the other tube.
  3. Go to the net.
  4. Climb up and go down one of the superfast red slides.
  5. Pull the three ropes (that activate water flow) that are near the main stairs.
  6. Go up the stairs.
  7. Ride the other superfast slide.
  8. Run to the water gun in the corner.
  9. Touch it first.
  10. WIN!!!

The three big tubes were okay. The blue and yellow tubes were for people only (no inner tubes), which meant that you felt the bumps as you changed section of slide. Those hurt. The red slide was good. You had to go down in an inner tube, so Ethan was in the back and I was in the front. It is pitch dark in the tube once you get away from the entrance and exit. That meant that I could tickle Ethan’s feet without him knowing I was going to do that. And that could have been the sole reason to go to the park! Ciao!

All About An Admiral (Almost All)

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Today was another sleepy day. After a huge breakfast that included papayas, bananas, corn flakes, toast, and omelettes, we got suggestions about things to do in Jaipur from the Admiral.

His name is Madvhendra Singh, but “Admiral” is so much easier to pronounce than “Madvhendra.” In the book in our rooms, you can read about things from the rules of bocce to when your guests have to leave to the Admiral’s family’s story. His son, Bhriguraj Singh, is the Senior Vice President of HSBC bank in Mumbai while his daughter, Dr. Piyusha Singh, is a Programme Director at Excelsior College in Albany, New York. You can also see evidence of the Admiral’s successful career as the house is dotted with paintings of him in uniform and more, including plaqueaw given to him from countries including the US (there are a lot of these), South Africa, Australia, India, and New Zealand.

After getting information, we did schoolwork and read and listened to the power shut off. At one we rose as if from a slumber and went swimming in the Pool With the Bumpy Bottom That Scrapes Your Feet. Once dry and sufficiently sunburned, we walked down to an ice cream parlor and then two malls. We bought an outrageous amount of chips, snack mix, and cookies at the supermarket below the second mall and rode a tuk-tuk the short way home. Another example of our wimpiness in riding tuk-tuks was when we rode one from Four Seasons, the restaurant at which we had a delicious supper. This one was called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and even had seats to match the flying car. The driver has never seen the movie. I have but I don’t remember it. Ciao!

One Last Time

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At a Swensen’s in Thailand… hopefully. We may actually get to go to India tomorrow! Swensen’s was pretty much all we did today except for swimming twice. The first time we were at Viva Gardens and Ethan and I swam by ourselves. Well, there were two little boys in the pool too, but they stayed in the shallow end. Ethan and I are such tall people that we could only be in the deep end (1.2 meters). Well, only in the deep end until we raced. We had one really long race at the end: three half-laps with different strokes (the crawl, backstroke, and breaststroke), touching each of the fountains on the spout, and all sorts of crazy things. Ethan eventually won and I was very disappointed.

At Swensen’s we all had chocolate ice cream (of course) and after that Mom and I looked at clothes in the Tesco Lotus (Swensen’s is in the building) while Dad and Ethan lurked. Once done there, we returnd to Viva Gardens one last time, picked up our luggage, and rode in a green taxi (green!) to BS Residence. After Ethan and I did our schoolwork for the day, we went swimming with Dad as Mom ordered supper from The Pizza Company. (Guess what we got?) It was a very successful day! Ciao!

Back in Bangkok

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A wise man once said that you can only see a city in the dark. Flying into Bangkok at 11 last night, I agreed: the city lights stretched out for miles to the horizon. Wee cars moved “slowly” on the roads below and a plane’s lights blinked behind us. It seemed like coming home. We’ve now landed on the Suvarnabhumi tarmac three times and Bangkok is kind of becoming a home base. We’ll be back, too, on our way to Australia.

The display on my watch said 0:16 as we walked into the Viva Garden building, which seems to be one of the coolest buildings ever. Later in the morning, we walked into the Indian Visa Application Centre and handed over our passports. We then made our way back to the Viva building for breakfast. After recharging our batteries some more, we went to the Tesco Lotus for Swensen’s and things like shampoo and a new shirt for Mom. Dad needed to get seats for our flight to New Delhi and asked Customer Service where the Thai Airlines place was as a man here had told him that the airline had a location in Tesco. The person at the booth sent him to the men’s clothing section for his Tie Airline visit.

Ethan and I spent about an hour in the awesome pool and then we went to supper at Look-in, a nearby restaurantthat serves Thai and Italian food. Ethan was dubbed “Young Boy Sir” by our waiter. Ciao!

A Laundry List without the Laundry

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We had to get up early this morning so we could go on a 2 hour trek through the jungle to get to a waterfall. But before we could do that, my mother had to take some laundry to the laundry place right down the street from our guesthouse. She took about twenty minutes, and by that time, the driver to take us to our trekking place was there in his blue pick-up truck. My mother finally came out of the laundry place, carrying all three bags of laundry back to us, and she then told me to carry them up to my room where we could leave the until we came back that evening.

After taking a fourty minute boat ride and a two hour hike, we finally arrived at the waterfall with the rest of our group. There were two girls from Canada, a girl from Vietnam (and an Australia accent), and the four of us, Ethan, Eryn, Jerry, and Susan.
We, the only vegetarians, had our own lunch on a rock a little bit below the big rock where everyone else was and had to sit out in the rain. When we finished eating, the Vietnamese girl went immediately to change into her swimsuit and had done a couple of laps (back and forth from land to the waterfall) before the darker-haired girl from Canada joined her. My dad got in and I quickly joined him.

When I first felt the water, I thought it would be really cold and that I would be shivering underwater, but when I got up to my shoulders as I swam from rock to rock, I noticed that it didn’t seem that cold. I swam to where my dad was standing on a rock about twenty yards away from the bottom of watefall and we both swam underneath a rock shelf that protruded from the waterfall. After that, we decided to go downstream a little ways, and just floated downstream to the place where you got out, and we did that, before heading up, back to the truck.

M.D. Madness

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M.D. House was our home in Chiang Mai for three weeks. It had its good sides and bad sides. It had two pools, except it seemed like one was always dirty. There were also tadpoles in one and nasty chemicals in the other. They were both green except for when a ton of chlorine was dumped in. However, they were always a nice temperature and there was a place to jump off into the smaller of the two pools. The bigger pool got deep at one end and had a waterfall.

The breakfasts could have been better. We bought fruit to go with them after the first day, and the only two dishes we ever chose were French toast and toast and eggs. The orange juice was prepackaged in little plastic cups before it was poured into our glasses, but the coffee was good (if you like your coffee without cream, sugar, and scaldig hot. There was a creamer and sugar but it took too long to adjust the flavor to suit your personal taste). The rooms were spacious and we were never lacking in toilet paper, but the sheets were never cleaned. We could’ve gotten clean towels more often but sometimes we were home when the cleaning lady came by.

There are also annoying neighbors, but those come and go and we can only blame them for their problems, including yelling nasty things about Harry Styles and One Direction as a whole.

The people on the staff were amazing. They would always smile at us as we walked by and, after the first day, knew which two keys to give us as we walked by the front desk. This hostel was worth the money we paid (not very much) and it was in a great location, so, if a pool and clean sheets aren’t your top priority in a place to stay, I would recommend this place.

Buatong Bash by Boon

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Buatong Waterfall was our destination today, and after an hour on the road, we finally made it.

Buatong is named after one of the king of Lanna’s daughters. He and his wife were killed and only his daughters Buakaew and Buatong escaped with their lives. Alas, they had no water in the jungle, so they prayed to one of their goddesses for help. The spring came out of the ground and the girls were saved.

The water contains calcium carbonate which has turned leaves, roots, and other things there into smooth rock. Well, not completely smooth. If you’re climbing up or down the waterfall, you’ll notice that the places where the flow is weak are the slippery parts. (Those parts are also green, brown, or black.) There are three levels, and at the bottom of the third one are two shallow pools (one is made for you to jump into. The other is probably too shallow). The top level is by far the longest. From the spring, there is a deep little stream that turns into the falls. After centuries of flow, there are turns around trees that are perfect little chairs.

The second and third falls are much the same, and for the best part you can, like Ethan and I did, climb all the way up to the top in the falls instead of on the trail. If you want to walk 150 meters, you can see the crystal-clear spring. Besides the waterfall, there is a bathroom (Europeans/Americans be warned: these are not Western toilets) and two places to buy necessary food staples such as fried chicken, papaya salad, and ice cream.

We drove back to Chiang Mai in Mr. Boon’s car. He has been of the utmost help to us and we thanked him greatly. Ciao!

Mista Boon

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Today we got up early (again) to go on a ride with Mr. Boon to the Boatong Waterfall. Once there, we changed into our swimsuits and took off down the steps to one of the lower levels in the warm-ish water. But, since you don’t know what in the world I am talking about, I will describe the waterfall:

The waterfall is made up of four levels, level 1, level 2, level 3, and one that I made up…….Kind of. The top level (1) is the one that you first see when you drive up to park, it is made of limestone and it is surprisingly not slippery. The next level down (2) is about 80 meters down the hill and you take steps to go down to it. There, there are some ankle-deep pools that you can wade in and you can climb the waterfall up to the first level or go down to the third. On the third level down, there is a tall and steep face of the waterfall, but it is still easy to go down, and there are some more ankle-deep pools below it. The level that I made up was the one at the very bottom and it had some deep-ish pools that you could jump into if you decided you wanted to go down some more rocks (or steps, the steps go all the way down).

What we did was skip level 1 because there were a lot of people there, but we stopped at level 2. While at level 2, we climbed up a little and then went down the other side, then waded in the litlle pools before Eryn and I went down the waterfall to level 3 (our parents took the stairs). At level three, I climbed the face a couple of times, and in between, some college age girls wanted their picture with me for some reason. Then we went down to the level that I made up and saw a family jumping in of the edge of a ledge and into a deeper part. I decided to do that and it was a bit colder than in the shallower area. Then Eryn joined me and we both jumped in half a dozen+ times into the water. We (being my father, Eryn, and I) decided that it would be fun to go up, actually, Eryn and I decided, but my dad just followed us. We climbed up steep limestone walls and through shallow pools before reaching the top, where Eryn scraped her toes and started to bleed.

When we arrived at the top, we found my mother sitting there with all of our stuff and we put on our flip-flops and walked up some more stairs to the spring of the stream that created the waterfall. The spring was crystal clear and there were little fish in it. There were also buckets attached to bamboo poles that you could dip into the water and pour on each others heads. We tried out the dippers, and as it turns out, a quart sized amount of water can seem really heavy at the end of a piece of grass.

When we got back to the parking lot area, we saw that a lot more people had come, so we decided to grab ice cream and leave.

Bonjour

Recording Life

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Today Ethan and I finally beat our parents to the breakfast table. We were down at 7:43 am with the intent to pleasantly surprise them (“them” in this case being Mom). After some cajoling, our twosome became four at around 8:19. At church we visited the English Sabbath school and listened to the service and sermon,which was all about what women shoulwe wear according to the Bible, Ellen White, and the speaker herself.

Potluck was the high point, what with one of the boys turning two, and there were noodles, spring rolls, and chocolate cake. Three people from our Sabbath school talked with us about our trip, and we discussed their travels as well. One man had been to India, Australia, Burma, Thailand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Laos, Pakistan, Great Britain, Italy… the list goes on.

Once home, we read: I on my Kindle and Ethan 360 Degrees Longitude. We finally went down to the pool and disrupted the sunbathers’ orderly afternoon. We timed ourselves and I can hold my breath for a pathetic 31 seconds and Ethan a mere 24. I can also do an underwater handstand for only eleven seconds. Once dry, we were dismissed to run to the 7-Eleven for four Magnum bars. It took us 6:44 minutes total, and we were out with the melting and cracking for an astoundingly long time of 2:19. We enjoyed that chocolate as well as our panna cotta at Boutique della Pasta after our potato and olive pizzas. Ciao!

Jump, Splash, Scream

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That is what happened when Eryn and I jumped into the little pool from the jacuzzi above when it was surrounded by college-aged girls who screamed and had to redo their makeup. It was very entertaining…….

We swam for only 20 minutes, but in that time, we scared away some girls, had races, and timed the time we could stay underwater. I noticed that one of the girls was reading Catching Fire and had an iPhone 4 or 4s. I think she put away her book as soon as we started jumping, but weirdly, she took out her iPhone and started doing something on it. Maybe texting her boyfriend, if she has one.

For the races, we put our legs into the lotus position and then proceeded to see who could go from one end of the pool to the other and back (while staying in the lotus position) the fastest. I won the race, but when we continued on to a breath holding contest, I only got 23 seconds while she got 29. Too bad.

The last time that we had swam in that pool, we had noticed that there had been a lot of water bugs and tadpoles due to unchlorinated water. This time, however, when we swam we saw almost no tadpoles, and the one that we saw was very much dead. It was very good to know that we wouldn’t have to be worried at swallowing a live tadpole, but then again, we had to be worried about swallowing a dead tadpole…….Yuk.

What Wat??

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Today was not a busy day, and we sat around and had naps for a big chunk of the day. In the morning, we had gone to Nature’s Way (again) and we sat around and had the same things as last time; mango and banana pancakes. An hour after we finished breakfast, we headed down the road for two Wats. One of the Wats was really big and had an old temple with elephant statues on the side of it and the other had a large temple building inside and was pretty big…..In the afternoon, Eryn and I swam in the deeper of the two pools and had a lot of fun, less fun, perhaps, when Eryn accidentally  made a big scratch on my back. For supper we went to back to the place where we had met the Oregonian family and didn’t see them but dined anyway.

Market Day

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Today was hot. Okay, compared to, say, what we’ll experience in India, it was not hot. But to our inexperienced selves, it was very hot. And we decided to walk (walk??? in summer in Thailand??? who does that???) to Wat Chedi Luang and Wat Phra Singh. Once we were done at Wat Phra Singh, much to our relief, Ethan got us a tuk-tuk and we rode home.

Once at home, we lounged around for a bit after getting more Magnum bars and sandwich cookies (including blueberry ice cream Oreos) from the 7-Eleven. We finally went swimming in the wonderfully cool pool. Once we got tired of that, we dried off, organized (i.e., deleted) more pictures, retrieved our clothes from the laundromat, and went in search of supper.

We didn’t find it at first. We were going to try Botique della Pasta again, but we passed it at 6:05, and it opens at 6:30. What a bummer. So we decided to try street food at the Sunday night market. All we ate in the “food court” section was a fried banana with a sugary sauce. It was good, but not very filling.

We looked around the market, and it didn’t seem that different from the Jatujak market, which was in Bangkok. Well, there was more variety in Bangkok. The Sunday night market in Chiang Mai is just a street that goes from wall to wall. It is lined with people selling their trinkets, baubles, and food and is filled with tourists, Thais, and musicians trying to earn a few baht. We bought two lamps (one for Ethan, one for me) and tried out our bargaining skills. We ended up with both lamps- originally 160 baht each, but we got a “discount” so it was 150 apiece- at 280 baht total (about US$3.70). After we walked up and down the street several times and looked at several restaurants, we decided on Aroon Rai, where we’ve gone before. (Mr. Boon recommended it.)

The food was good, as usual, and afterward we went to “Bird’s” (you want the real name? Fine. It was Bud’s.) With almost no chocolate left, we had limited choices. Well, there were only ten flavors in the first place, and only a few of those had chocolate (we can “only” eat ice cream with chocolate!). Mom had one scoop of rocky road, Ethan had one scoop each of rocky road and cookies and cream, Dad had one scoop each of rocky road and mocha almond, and I had a scoop of peanut butter (there was chocolate in that. Just a very small amount). It was very, very, very good (and it was cold, too. That made it even better!). Ciao!

To the Zoo!!!

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Today we went to the zoo in the early afternoon and stayed for about two hours. It was fun to feed the giraffes pieces of banana straight from your/my hand. We were going to go to the so-called “snow dome” but it turned out to be just an opportunity to get your picture taken in 19.4 degrees Fahrenheit next to a styrofoam snow man……Not exactly the best thing to do, even if it was only eighteen dollars for the four of us. Anyway, we also saw an elephant that had its tusks curled together so that it couldn’t skewer people in the passing buses that sometimes stopped there. The zoo also seemed so proud of the fact that it had some pandas, and it even had a gift shop that had some panda-dung notepads. We saw a couple of different varieties of big cats, including tigers, white tigers, lions, leapords, and panthers, and for the leapord, for twenty baht, I fed it a piece of beef on a stick.

The Search for the Perfect Café

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This morning, other than breakfast and updating the pictures on this site, we did… nothing!!! We were going to go to church, but the English service started at 9 am. This we discovered at 11. Eventually, we left with a certain destination in mind. To get there we had to ride in a songtow, which is a red “bus” that works like a taxi but has multiple stops with each load, as different people want to go different places. These are usually red with green padding on the benches and walls of the truck, but there are also yellow songtow. We call these “yellow red buses.” The lining of our songtow was pink.

Chiang Mai Zoo is what the sign says. But it is more than that. It is also a place to buy ice cream, land of the [lame] Snow Dome (-7 degrees Celsius, but it’s only really a photo oppurtunity), and the place to feed big cats (leopards, jaguars, pumas) and hand-feed giraffes. AND it is the only location of the Loo Café (I misread “Zoo” on the cursive sign).

After a very refreshing swim with Louisa (remember her? She’s the one who likes One Direction.), my family members chose the Free Bird Café for supper. It was being renovated. So we walked some more and found a [really good] Indian restaurant. The garlic naan is to die for!!!

Now I’m sitting next to Mom as she gets a foot massage. She says, “It’s wonderful… I could do this every [week].” Hmm. For US$5, I bet you could (and would) do it too! Ciao!

R&R

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After an extremely good breakfast at Nature’s Way consisting of mango pancakes, banana pancakes, dragon fruit, Thai iced tea, and shakes, we did pretty much nothing the rest of the day. Well, nothing other than school and sorting pictures and reading. At around 2 pm, we finally got ourselves moving: Ethan and I went swimming for half an hour. I also got frustrated with some tiny ants for not caring about when we submerged the others (we didn’t let any die, though!). Then we decided we needed Magnum ice cream bars like we had yesterday. So Ethan and I got to go by ourselves (!) to the 7-Eleven a couple yards down the street. We got three chocolate truffle bars and one chocolate ice cream cone, which was for Ethan.

For supper we went to a suggested restaurant: Aum. It had a very small downstairs and a fair-sized loft. We ate in the loft, where you could recline on chairs and play with the toys in the toy basket, including…. BARBIE!!! 🙂 Well, all we really did with her was do her greasy hair. Who knew synthetic hair could be greasy???

Our meal was good. We had deep-fried soybean leaves in tempura, red curry, spring rolls, green beans in a spicy sauce, brown rice, sweet and sour vegetables, and deep-fried tofu. To drink, I had a frothy pineapple lassi, which seemed the same as a pineapple smoothie. Apparently it’s made with yogurt, but I detected no difference. Ethan had apple Fanta, which he said tasted like Listerine mouthwash. Dad had a pineapple-lemon shake, and Mom had a banana-orange smoothie. For dessert, Dad and I went to the 7-Eleven and bought four types of cookies for 40 baht (about US$1.34): double-chocolate Cream-Os (Oreo wannabes), vanilla-chocolate Cream-Os, and strawberry and blueberry cookies, both by Dewberry. So far, the blueberry cookies have been the worst. Ciao!

Chiang Mai has Delicious Ice Cream

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Today we went nowhere. How fun…….Actually, it was fun, because we got to do what we wanted to do and nothing was scheduled so we just sat around in the air conditioning reading books and sorting pictures on the computer. The highlight of my day (and probably Eryn’s too) was swimming in the pool. The water was a little cold and we had to dunk a couple of times before we were warmed up enough to swim around. We had a couple of races and breath holding contests before we “discovered” a new stroke and I call it the squid stroke. It is where you are going back-first underwater and you just kick, and you don’t use your arms. Also, when I came back from using the bathroom, Eryn was giving a lecture to some ants that were walking across the filter in search of food; she was blocking one off to prove that they didn’t care about one another and all they cared about was getting food back to their home. As it turns out, she was right, and when she barricaded an ant off from the rest and it was stuck, no other ant came out to help it. When we got out of the pool, we read a little bit before going across the street to an ever-present 7-11 and bought ice cream for us all. It was really good. I got a chocolate cone, and the rest of my family had a Chocolate Truffle Magnum Bar. When we got back, my dad was editing pictures from the wax museum, and some of the pictures were of Eryn with “Justin Beiber.” Oolala……not.

Happy Fourth!

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Today was spent with our friend Mr. Boon, who had driven us home from the train station on Monday and was familiar (in detail) with Chiang Mai. We had him drive us around to various places, and he was also a very valuable source of information about a lot of things, ranging from King Rama IX to Thai schools to street food.

The places we went to today were as follows:

  1. Wat Umong- the tunnel temple. We were slightly dissapointed, I think, because on Trip Advisor it said that there were plenty of temples, it was interesting, etc. There was a fish pond, too, and apparently it is a good investment to buy fish and pigeon feed and sell it to visitors at the wat. There were two Thai ladies there who had dozens of pigeons around them.
    We were also growled and fauxtacked by the stray mutts there. There must be at least twenty of those creatures there.
  2. Doi Suthep- There are 309 stairs to get to the wat at the top. That, OR you can take the tram. Obviously we walked. On our way down we stopped at the waffle shop, and Ethan and I got waffle-and-chocolate sandwiches and Mom got a wafflized banana. (A banana wrapped in waffle.)
  3. Orchid and butterfly farm- One of the most beautiful places in the world. First we went in the butterfly section, where Mom, Ethan, and I got some amazing pictures. Drifting on into the orchid part, we found the best and most colorful blooms placed at the ends of the long aisles, but there were some pretty ones in the actual aisles, too. The most interesting part? The orchids aren’t in pots; they’re just hung from a hook once they get to a certain size/age.
  4. Tiger Kingdom- I’ll admit it now: I was scared going into it. I was thinking, They’ll bite. Of course they’ll bite. I’ve seen Animal Planet enough. They stress that, despite what it seems, animals like tigers are still wild animals and can still act viciously.
    Which they (kind of) did. Just not to me, or anyone, for that matter. Just to their playmates.
    We couldn’t go in and see the newborns in the nursery because it was off-limits to visitors, and Ethan and I couldn’t get in the cage with the big cats because we’re under 15 and less that 160 centimeters tall. But Mom and Dad survived.
    We did get to cuddle with the 3-4-month-olds and laugh at the 5-7-month-olds’ antics. That wasn’t even the best part- we got to see three (and, sometimes, all four) of the big tigers play after we had our ice cream and pineapple drinks. They destroyed all the toys that got in their reach, though.
  5. M.D. House- Where we swam. It only rained for about three minutes total today.
  6. Boutique della Pasta- An Italian restaurant for supper. We all shared the appetizers: caprese and bruschetta. I had pumpkin-carrot ravioli, my dad had cheese ravioli, Ethan had an orange sauce with his pasta, and my mom had a pesto sauce with hers. We all had dessert. Ethan and I had a sort of chocolate pudding (Panna Cotta), Mom had tiramisu, and Dad had, I think, a scoop of chocolate ice cream. That was when we heard the fireworks, reminding us to celebrate our country’s independence from Britain.
    We asked the lady who worked there what the fireworks were for, and she said some sort of festival. Mr. Boon had explained that tonight all those who wanted went the 15K up the hill to Doi Suthep. It was a traditional Buddhist Chiang Mai celebration of sorts.
    Still, I’m sticking with it: some Americans set those fireworks off knowing today was the fourth of July.

 Ciao!

When in Chiang Mai

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So, we arrived in Chiang Mai last Sunday and have found our place of residence; the B.D. House in the inner city.

Our accommodations are situated right inside the moat that surrounds the old city. It is a fairly large place with two pools, but it has only a small breakfast menu. We are in the second building, on floor 3, and we are one of the few people on our floor.

Let me fill you in on what happened since I left you in Bangkok:

  • We got to the train station around 4:30 PM on Sunday after we had gone to 3 different malls in the center of town. On the train ride, we had first class seats (did I say seats, I meant bunks) that were in adjoining compartments. On the train ride, we had supper, which was good, and breakfast was pretty sparse, the only part that most of us ate was the toast with butter. It was a bumpy night, but most of us slept all right, but still, we were all tired in the morning.
    When we got to Chiang Mai, we went to our place by a taxi man (who had a long Thai name, so he called himself “Mr. Boon” and said that Daniel was his brother) and went to the park at the corner of the old town after a time where we just sat on a couch for a while. Then we tried to go to an Italian resturaunt, but found out that it was closed, so we went to a place a little ways down the street from our place that served good food, and both Eryn and my mother commented on how great the iced tea was.

Today:

  • Today, when we went down to breakfast, Eryn, my mother, and I all got “french toast” which was little more than glorified toast.Then we went to the Airport Plaza Mall and went around the food court, eating coconut ice cream and fried bananas. When we came “home” Eryn and I swam, and met a 13-year-old girl from Brazil named Louisa. When we got out of the pool, we went upstairs and got our schoolwork done, before going out to supper in a tuk-tuk. It took us about an hour to get there, because our driver didn’t know where in the world (Chiang Mai, that is) our resturaunt. The food there was o.k. But it wasn’t my style. It was a curry soup that you got to put your own condements on, such as cabbages, challots, fish sauce, coconut milk, sugar, lime, pepper paste, and banana slices. As it turns out, when we got a tuk-tuk to go back, it only took us about 5 minutes to get back.

Tomorrow, we are going to go on a ride with Mr. Boon and go to tourist places. Then, on Thursday, we are going to the elephant farm. And that is as far as we have planned ahead.

Our 2 days in Chiang Mai have been very nice and interesting ones, and we hope to have many more.

Bidding Bangkok ‘Bye

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Today we had a more relaxed day. After a typical breakfast (rice, eggs, mangoes, mystery sauce, chocolate soy milk, and pomegranate juice), we headed down the street to the Chimney Cafe for mochas and desserts: hot lava cake and whipped cream (I thought the sign said “Chocolate lava with whipped cream,” but it said “and” instead of “with.” They were right. There was more whipped cream than cake!), a brownie, and a piece of almond mocha cake. They weren’t all for me… :(. I had the lava cake, Ethan had the brownie, and Mom had the piece of cake. We all had mochas, which were, as usual, very good. Ethan also got a bottle of water because he “need[ed] something cold to drink.”

On our way home, we stopped by the Buddha Dharma Relics Museum across the street. It was a bit confusing since we’re not Buddhist because to us it seemed like the relics (such as brain, heart, skin, hair, tooth) were just little rocks. That makes us sound disrespectful, but no one could speak enough English to explain, and Wikipedia wasn’t much help either. There were stories written in English and Thai on the walls, though, and we read those and appreciated the many statues, including the three of Buddha in his three different outfits: one for winter, one for summer, and one for the rainy season.

Once home, we all went down to the pool and swam. Our parents got out after only an hour-and-a-half and Ethan and I left fifteen minutes later. I had Mom take 366 pictures on my camera. Okay, I didn’t have her do that. I let her do that. We just had supper in Bangkok for the last time at our favorite place, Buri Tara, which is across the street. Sigh. Well, duty calls. Ciao!

 

High ‘n’ Dry

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Let me start off by saying we were neither high nor dry today. Now I will continue:

We were going to visit the floating markets of Dar, but we, as obvious American tourists, were advised against it. Instead we had the second-most laid-back day of our trip. We had our typical breakfast of rice, eggs, and some mysterious (but thankfully mild and flavorful) sauce. We also had oranges. We spent a while after that just dilly-dallying until about ten. After a few stops, we finally got off the sky train at the Sala Daeng stop to visit the park given to Bangkok by King Rama the sixth. It’s called Lumpini Park, which is a very Italian name. That explains the sign on a nearby skyscraper that reads “ITALIAN-THAI” in fifteen-foot red letters. That building also has a big white sign on it that says Oregon!

Way back in the 1920s, when the king gave the civilians the royal property, the area was on the outer edge of town. Now it’s in the middle of the business district and has two train stops- a Metro and a sky train- on its edges. There’s also a big statue of the king. The park was named after Lumbini, which is where Buddha was born in Nepal.The whole area is 142 acres and has plenty of things to do, including watching the water monitors and people, paddle-boating in boats that look like ducks, zoning out in the shade, playing on the playground, and getting soaking wet in the sprinklers on the ground and fountains in the lake. We did all of these things, plus getting bit by mosquitoes, bouncing on the see-saw, playing “Escape” on the play structure, “working out” on the gym equipment, and getting pelted by rocks from the edger.

But that wasn’t even the most interesting part of our day. At the station that connects the bus system and the sky train system, we saw part of a movie being filmed. We weren’t in it (sadly), but all the extras were white and the cameramen were speaking in English and the five main actors looked slightly familiar. This isn’t the first time that we’ve been in the same city as some famous people. When we were in Venice in 2010, Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp were there filming The Tourist. We figured this out because there was a sign by a canal that said something in Italian, but we found the words “The Tourist” and “filming.”

After that “exciting” event, we went on to the food stalls where we bought our first “street” food: waffles. They came in all different styles, including maple (which I got) and cranberry, and with all sorts of different fillings, including chocolate (which we all got), taro root, Thai custard, and red bean. The outside of the waffle was the best I’ve ever had except for in Florence, Italy: large grains of sugar and coated in a sweet syrup. On the return trip, we got some dried kiwi and mango from a different stall. Yum!

On the way home we bought some groceries at MaxValu, including ice cream, chocolate soy milk, and pomegranate juice. For supper we’ve ordered two pizzas. Since we’ve been home, we’ve swam in the pool, ordered two pizzas and a salad, eaten the dried mangoes, and worked on schoolwork, which made it just a typical day in Bangkok.

A Busy (and sweaty) day in Bangkok

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Since you can’t be friends with dogs in Thailand and since it is so hot and Americans sweat so much, bottled water has become man’s new best friend. The pool at our hotel is fairly big, with fountains and tile whales at the bottom. We also found out today that 7-11 is a very common store on the streets behind our apartment building. On a single walk on only two streets we saw 4 7-11s!!!!

Help! There Are Whales In My Swimming Pool!!!

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Today, Saturday for us and 1/2 Friday and 1/2 Saturday for you Pacific coasters, we got up at around 8 am, showered, and walked down the street 850 meters to the Chimney Café. We had an interesting mix of food- to drink, Mom and I had hot chocolates and Ethan and Dad had lattes. For the main course Mom and Ethan had chicken fried rice, Dad had green curry chicken, and I had a chicken soup of some sort and steamed rice. Let me tell you: salty chicken soup and a creamy latte don’t taste good together. At all!

Anyway, we decided we needed to make a plan for the rest of our time in Bangkok, so we spent what seemed like forever talking and writing and thinking. In the end, we decided that we needed to go grocery shopping. We rode the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) down three stops, from the Wat Pariwat stop 50 feet from our building to the Charoen Rat stop, which is number ten on the line. We’re near number seven.

At MaxValu, which is only a few feet from the BRT stop, there was a singing competition going on in what we discovered to be a mall. There was even an Office Max! That and the Nutella were the only really familiar parts, and I think we were the only white people there.

We bought some cool looking fruits, a mango, rice, a spicy looking sauce, eggs, an onion, and some shampoo. When we returned to our apartment, we ate another chocolate bar, and then Ethan and I went swimming in the awesome pool: it has blue tiles on the bottom and whales made with green tiles. It’s only about three feet deep in most places, but it has cool fountains to compensate. Ciao!

17 Hours

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17 hours, 17 things:
1. Landed in Thailand
2. Checked into BS Residence
3. Gone to bed
4. Woken up
5. Had breakfast (rice, toast, and chocolate dry cereal… yum)
6. Swam in the (“biggest … I’ve ever seen” Ethan said) pool at BS Residence
7. Packed up and moved out of BS Residence
8. Rode in first taxi of my life to Star Estates
9. Entered apartment to find it wasn’t yet cleaned
10. Left in search of the Holy Grail… okay, bottled water
11. Went to the “market” across the street
12. Sweated
13. Crossed back and found a Seven-Eleven
14. Bought four bottles of water, a huge bucket filled with H2o, and a tube of toothpaste
15. Returned to apartment and chose rooms
16. Taxi-watched (10 colors, 1 street: Pink, red, orange, golden, yellow, yellow & green, green, blue, purple, and dark purple)
17. Finished 2 pages in my math book and 2 pages in my science book

We’ve only been in the land of the Siam for 17 hours* (1 am this morning to 6 pm tonight) and already we’ve been through so much (and yet, comparatively, so little). Ciao!

*I found several mistakes in this, so I edited it 17 hours after posting it. 🙂

Afternoon Fun

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We chose to go bowling (since it was raining), and we played two games at the Hollywod Bowl from 2 to 4 pm. All that arm use made us hungry, so we drove for forty-five minutes to get to the Old Spaghetti Factory, which was 3.5 miles away. On the bright side, if we had taken only five minutes to drive to the restaurant, it would have still been closed. (It opens for supper at 4:30 pm.) After spaghetti (obviously), spumoni, and Oreo milk shakes, we said good-bye to my aunt, uncle, and Fergus and headed to Fred Meyer because we couldn’t find a Target. There we bought things such as pencil sharpeners, plain watches, and erasers.

We checked into our airport hotel and made sure it had a pool. Then Ethan and I went swimming while our father went to return the rental car and our mother watched us (because we’re not 14 yet). We played Marco Polo… you should try playing that with two people in a small pool. You can bet you’re going to get tagged!

Ciao!